Harnessing the social transmission of microbiota to improve health and immunity

人们早就认识到致病微生物的社会传播，最近，个人与个人的社会接触因其在新冠肺炎大流行期间传播不利微生物的作用而引起了许多负面的社会关注。然而，个体也依赖许多其他微生物，特别是微生物群，这些微生物群构成了他们的“微生物组”，现在已知它们与包括人类在内的许多物种的几乎所有健康方面都有联系。虽然最初的研究主要集中在个体如何塑造自己的微生物群（例如，通过他们的饮食和他们与环境的相互作用），但健康微生物群在个体之间的社会传播的作用现在越来越被认识到。具体而言，当代研究表明，任何特定个体的微生物组也受到与其社会接触的个体微生物组的影响。例如，关于健康微生物群的社会传播重要性的一个众所周知的例子是人类的阴道分娩，长期以来人们都知道阴道分娩可以塑造婴儿的微生物群，并且在这种情况下比剖腹产分娩有各种好处。然而，尽管所有人类婴儿都从生命早期开始建立自己的微生物群，但最近的发现和新出现的证据越来越多地指出，微生物群的社会传播在出生后很长一段时间内持续，并贯穿个人的整个生命。事实上，社会接触似乎不仅是婴儿从母亲那里获得微生物群菌株的主要决定因素，而且也是个体在不同生命阶段从广泛的背景/互动伙伴中获得微生物群菌株的决定因素，因为有益微生物随着时间的推移从一个宿主传播到另一个宿主。因此，在考虑传播传染病的社会接触的成本和收益同时负责健康微生物群的传播时，存在一个重要但相对被忽视的权衡。当考虑到通过社会接触获得的一些健康微生物群也可能有助于提高对也通过社会接触传播的疾病的免疫力时，这种悖论就更加突出了。这个项目将解决社会性的悖论，既传播有害微生物，也传播健康微生物群。该项目旨在对如何利用社会传播造福健康产生新的见解，特别是在促进个人接触负责提供免疫力和预防社会传播疾病的微生物群的背景下。该项目将利用从概念上理解社会传播的原因和后果的学术专业知识，并将其与基于行业的方法相结合，以认识在广泛背景下对健康和卫生的现实影响，从而实现这一目标。利用各种方法，将具体实验结果与现实世界大数据分析结果相结合，将为利用微生物群的社会传播来改善健康和免疫力做出新的重要贡献。该项目将对现实世界哺乳动物系统中健康微生物群和传染病的社会传播之间的相互作用，以及个体因素和环境/社会环境如何影响这种相互作用产生新的理解。它还将结合大规模的观察方法（在社会环境中检查真实世界的数据）和精细的实验（例如操纵暴露于特定的追踪微生物群）。因此，它在促进对这一主题的基本理解以及在健康和卫生领域内公认的影响方面具有很大的潜力，并且具有从学术团体到研发组织的广泛受益者。

Social transmission of disease-causing microbes has long been recognised, and individual-to-individual social contact has recently attracted much negative societal attention for its role in spreading disadvantageous microbes during the COVID19 pandemic. Nevertheless, individuals also rely on many other microbes, particularly microbiota, that make up their 'microbiome' which is now known to be linked to almost all aspects of health in many species, including humans. While initial research focussed heavily on how an individual may shape their own microbiome (e.g. through their diet and their interaction with their environment), the role of social transmission of healthy microbiota between individuals is now becoming increasingly recognised. Specifically, contemporary studies suggest that any given individual's microbiome is also influenced by the microbiome of individuals they are in social contact with. For instance, a well-known example of the importance of social transmission of healthy microbiota is vaginal birth in humans, which has long been known to shape the infant microbiome and hold various benefits over C-section birth in this context. Yet, while all human infants begin to build up their microbiome from early life, recent findings and emerging evidence are increasingly pointing towards social transmission of microbiota continuing long after birth, and throughout individuals' entire lives. Indeed, social contact appears to not only be a primary determinant of which strains of microbiota an infant gains from their mother, but also a determinant of which strains of microbiota individuals' gain from social contacts across a broad range of contexts/interaction partners over their different life-stages, as beneficial microbes socially transmit from one host to another over time. Therefore, an important, but relatively neglected, trade-off exists when considering the costs and benefits of social contact for spreading contagious diseases while simultaneously being responsible for transmission of healthy microbiota. This paradox is emphasised even more when considering that some of the healthy microbiota gained through social contact may also be helpful in improving immunity to the diseases also spread by social contact. This project will address the paradox of sociality for spreading both disadvantageous microbes as well as healthy microbiota. The project aims to generate new insights into how social transmission can be exploited to benefit health, particularly in the context of promoting individuals' exposure to microbiota responsible for providing immunity and protection against socially-transmitted diseases. The project will achieve this through drawing on academic expertise in conceptually understanding the causes and consequences of social transmission, and combine this with industry-based approaches to recognising real-world impact for health and hygiene across broad range of contexts. Using varied approaches, combining results from specific experiments with findings from real-world big data analysis, new and important contributions will be made towards harnessing the social transmission of microbiota to improve health and immunity. The project will produce new understanding of the interplay between the social transmission of healthy microbiota and infectious diseases in real-world mammalian systems, as well as how individual factors and environmental/social settings can shape this. It will also combine large-scale observational approaches (examining real-world data in social settings) with fine-scaled experiments (e.g. manipulating exposure to specific tracked microbiota). As such, it holds much potential for advancing fundamental understanding of this topic and also for recognised impact within the fields of health and hygiene, and has a broad range of beneficiaries from academic groups to R&D organisations.